Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 144: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

134 Adventure For the moment DuBeque considered his broken jaw providential. Then some one-suggested that he write it out. Du- Beque was really very miserable. He did not feel like writing. One of the men, not entirely sober at the time, who claimed to have been a medical student in his youth, took DuBeque in hand, wrenched the jaw painfully in locating the break, swathed his head in bandages and, making a “straw” of oiled paper, let him suck down a drink. Thereupon DuBeque wrote that he had gone ashore with the intention of putting a gun to Williams’ head and ordering him to come along, but Williams had asked about the boy, Gilbert, and DuBeque had said he had been put in irons. Williams was angry about that, but DuBeque had said he had better tell his troubles to Willerby. Williams said he would go right on board and do that very thing, and DuBeque had replied that it was just as well because he, DuBeque, had come after him for the purpose of taking him back, without trouble if possible. “What? Send but one man after me?” Williams had exclaimed. “Why not? You are only one man,” DuBeque had said. “T’ll go,” said Williams. Thus it all happened according to DuBeque. That was an adroit and plausible ex- planation and seemed, in its essential features, true, but some of those who read it wondered what would have happened had DuBeque not been lucky enough to find Williams in a humor for coming, and a few were inclined to think that DuBeque had been braver than they suspected in taking the chance. Then Willerby proceeded with his council of war. . Hurricane Williams was to be wiped off the face of the earth. Somewhere near in one of the many bays and islets he had his ship. That must be captured. It would in a way serve as an indemnity for the trouble of wiping him off the earth. The Gopassans must be stirred up to make trouble for him and his natives. What shell and pearls he had obtained must be apprehended, as they were more “or less anyhow the personal property of Willerby—or, at least, such was his feeling about them. But all of those were incidental to the safe and sure move contemplated. A Ger- man gunboat, the Pring, was some two hundred miles away at Shortland Island. Willerby knew the officers well, and they liked hj , rather, had liked his wine and friends. With that far-sightedness that always characterizes the successful man of business, Willerby had foreseen that German influence would be strong enough to get a portion of the South Seas, and he wished to keep on the agreeable side of the Germans, In other words, he foresaw the coming agreement that would put, some of the smaller islands afd Bougainville under the Kaiser’s protectorate. The Pring was now at Shortland makin surveys of the little island, Morgusaia, with that methodical exactitude which Germans use in picking up the crums dropped by empire-grabbing nations. That exhaustive survey and charting would add weight to German claims in the South Seas. The capture of Williams would also be very agreeable to the Prinz, and the Ger- mans would remember the favor Willerby had done them. So it was decided that the next morning the larger lugger should take on fresh water, get aboard a few of the best sailors from the Bebe and slip down the coast to the Prinz. The next morning it was raining—as usual. Willerby and his friends lay late abed— as usual. Grogan went on board the lugger as skipper and found her in need of refilling water-casks. One way to fill them was to go to the stream that flowed down to the bay from around the east side of the village. Another was to spread canvas and catch the rain. Willerby awoke in an irritable mood. For one thing, his throat was more painful than ever. Instead of a glass of raw brandy poured down by way of letting his stomach know he was up, he was compelled to sip a hot toddy. He went on deck and found the rain. He was tired of rain. It seemed to him that not even Noah had endured so much rain. He was in the mood for ripping somebody up for something. But the poop had already been washed down and the brass work shined, There were no raffle about and everything looked shipshape. Only a man who has looked for trouble _ comicbooks.c } om: